Watch Bill Carter's Video for "BLACK LION"

If you're not familiar with Austin-based singer-songwriter Bill Carter, you have MOST LIKELY heard him or his songs but just didn’t know it. First,there’s “Crossfire,” the No. 1 hit he and his co-writer wife Ruth Ellsworth, Tommy Shannon and Reese Wynans — a.k.a. Double Trouble, the band who backed T-bird Jimmie Vaughan’s little brother, Stevie Ray. Or there’s “Anything Made of Paper,” penned for the West Memphis 3’s Damien Echols, which Carter recorded with pal Johnny Depp and performed on the Late Show With David Letterman. Featured in the West of Memphis documentary and on the accompanying soundtrack, it’s also an award-winning animated video.

Carter’s songs have been covered by scores of major artists, from John Mayall and Ruth Brown to Robert Palmer and Waylon Jennings; among his accolades is a BMI Million Air award for more than three million “Crossfire” spins. But Carter has also released several albums of his own, the latest of which, Innocent Victims and Evil Companions, will be released February 26, 2016, on Forty Below Records.

On this one, the artist takes blues, soul, country and rock into realms both far-reaching and familiar, aided by several A-team Austin players. They include guitarists Charlie Sexton and Denny Freeman(Dylan’s current and former, respectively) and David Holt (Joe Ely, the Mavericks, Storyville); drummer Dony Wynn (Robert Palmer, Charlie Mars); keyboardist Mike Thompson (the Eagles, together and solo); fiddler Richard Bowden (Maines Brothers, Austin Lounge Lizards); the Tosca String Quartet (everyone from David Byrne to the Dixie Chicks); and brass/woodwind player/string arrange John Mills.